Digital rights management (“DRM”) is seeing more widespread use to control access, use, and distribution of digital media content such as software, music, video (e.g., television, music videos and movies) and other digital data. One of the reasons DRM was developed is that digital media content, unlike traditional analog media content, has the potential to be copied over and over without any loss of quality in subsequent copies. In addition, the costs to copy digital media content and distribute it over networks such as the Internet are very small compared with the cost to create the content.
DRM typically enforces some restrictions on the duration of time or number of times a media file may be played on a device, or may limit the number of devices that may be used for playback. Some DRM methodologies, such as those currently used with digital versatile disc (“DVD”) limit use of the media content to playback only, without authorization or enablement for copies to be made. DRM is also being used with some media content on compact disc (“CD”) as well. Whatever particular rights or limits are provided, DRM generally enables digital media content providers to protect and manage their investments in creating the content. Such protection and management is often viewed as being reasonably necessary to ensure that a wide variety of high quality media content continues to be available to consumers.
The U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 made it illegal to circumvent DRM and other methods used to protect the copyright of media content. Other countries have since adopted similar provisions under the requirements of an international treaty sponsored by the World Intellectual Property Organization. Recent court decisions have also confirmed that unauthorized sharing or downloading of proprietary media content using peer-to-peer file-sharing software violates the content provider's rights in protecting its creations. Thus, DRM has developed a solid legal footing in addition to its support from digital content creators and providers.
Consumers have generally accepted DRM and continue to purchase digital media content, such as music downloaded from Internet stores, that include DRM use restrictions. However, consumer reaction is more favorable and DRM techniques less apt to be purposefully circumvented when DRM restrictions are perceived as being fair and unobtrusive. That is, consumers appear to be more willing to accept DRM and are less likely to illegally acquire or share digital media content when legal use is simple and straightforward and meets the consumer's expectations of fairness. Thus, a goal for many DRM techniques is to make the implementation of DRM as transparent to the user as possible so that legal use of the media content is simply enabled with little or no awareness by the consumer that DRM is present or being implemented.
Some current DRM schemes include storing a DRM license for downloaded media content on a device such as a personal computer (“PC”) or server. PCs are commonly used as proxy devices that facilitate the downloading of the media content, as well as the copying or transferring of the media content to portable media players such as music players, mobile phones, handheld game devices and the like.
While such DRM schemes can often perform satisfactorily, storing a DRM license or media content on a PC's hard disk drive (“HDD”) can be problematic in some situations. In addition, having the DRM licenses or media content tied to the PC may present problems to a user looking to replace a failed PC or upgrade to a new model. Some users may regard the awareness of DRM that must be maintained when using a PC as a proxy to be a burden which interferes with access to the media content. In addition, hard disk crashes and other system failures are not uncommon with even new or well maintained PCs. Unfortunately, users risk losing the media content, or the DRM licenses needed to play the content, when a system failure occurs or the hard drive crashes. Even if the HDD is backed up, restoring DRM protected media content can often be tricky and not all DRM licenses from all sources are configured to be restorable from a backup source. Users may be required to contact the download provider or vendor to replace the media content in such cases. This can cause additional problems for the user, for example, in cases where the original media content is no longer available.